1 February 2019.
By Neptune
This is not a super week for film releases – so check out the excellent ones that are still on the Geneva screens – THE GREEN BOOK, BEN IS BACK, SHOPLIFTERS, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, COLD WAR, EDMOND, FACTEUR CHEVAL, COLETTE… The choice is vast.
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK **
If you want a superb film by or about the great black writer James Baldwin, go back and see the 2016 documentary “I Am Not Your Negro”. It will shake all your perceptions.
This one, based on one of his novels and which has been receiving a lot of hype, is just a melodramatic story of a young black couple in 1970s Harlem who can’t be together due to racial injustices. Sad and somewhat touching, not earthshaking…
LES ESTIVANTS **1/2 (vo Italian/French)
Here is Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (sister of Carla Bruni Sarkozy) once again baring her soul and intimate secrets in this meandering film about a lazy family holiday on the Riviera.
She’s gathered an interesting array of top French and Italian actors – Pierre Arditi, Vincent Perez, Valeria Golino, Riccardo Scamarcio, Noémie Kvovsky, plus her own mother, in this film-within-a-film where she is trying to make a movie while going through the throes of a messy romantic breakup.
Her usual clinging character is embarrassing to watch, as though we’re intruding upon a mass family therapy session. This is the ultimate conceit – navel-gazing at its creepiest. But there are some amusing moments, the ensemble acting is fine, as are the lovely surroundings of the spoiled rich.
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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